


Desert Miracle

by FroldGapp



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Implied Sheith, Keith (Voltron) is a Mess, Kidge - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-14 04:51:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11200812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FroldGapp/pseuds/FroldGapp
Summary: Space is lonely. Luckily, in helping Keith, Pidge gives more meaning to her time amongst the stars.





	Desert Miracle

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Work got mental around April, then I was travelling, then I moved house and then I forgot how to write for my other fic, Patty Cakes. So here's a wee warm-up! 2 beers in and no beta... Eh... I'm sure I'll catch the typos in due course.

The bridge was deathly quiet. The kind of quiet only space could create. The kind of quiet that forced air from lungs and buried fingernails in strange bedsheets. The iron weight of infinite on your shoulders, the black, unblinking confirmation that you were a nothing floating in endless, sable nothingness. ‘In space, no one can hear your scream.’ Or weep. Or sigh.

Pidge felt very, very alone tonight as her whispering feet traced the dimly lit halls of the Castle of Lions.

She had awoken, sweat soaked and panting. She had dreamed of her father, as she often did. He at the garden shed, wrestling with a rust-stiff padlock. She had thought him so tall then, grunting in the August sun. So broad; back arched against the strain of the reluctant lock. But he was small, she realised. Smaller than Shiro certainly. A slight man, all too human.

And Matt… Just a boy. His wisdom, his knowing smile, his mocking, gliding air had turned to ash in space. He was just as stupid, and confused, and ignorant, and wanting, and naïve as the other boys she was jettisoned in space with. “If Matt’s alive,” she thought. “Please don’t let him suffer”’ But she knew it was a child’s wish, and her cheeks burned with the realisation. What would Shiro think. Or Keith…

“Pidge?”

Startled to a halt, Pidge scrambled to make sure her pyjamas were in order. She’d reached the bridge sooner than she’d thought. In front of her, sitting by the viewing gallery, was Keith. He’d whispered her name more than said it, equally startled, in a black tee and bare legs. He tugged at his boxers. His cheeks were flags of red.

“You’re up,” she said dumbly. He simply nodded, then lifted something from behind his thigh.

Padding closer, mice stirring from their nest to follow at her heels, Pidge could see it was a little plant. A cactus.

He held it to her like an injured bird. “Do you think it’s dying?”

“It’s already dead, Keith,” Pidge said, pushing her glasses up her sweat-damp nose.

Keith’s broad shoulders fell with a sigh. “I was hoping…” he gestured towards the field of stars behind him.

“Plants are very sensitive to changes in their environment.” He turned his beseeching eyes on her as she spoke. The kind of look reserved for one-on-one, barbs as limp and harmless as the plant’s. “We’re light years from home, Keith.”

He nodded, then his face darkened suddenly. Pidge genuinely thought he might pelt the cactus against the window, but in the next moment he set it down gently next to his bare foot.

“It was Shiro’s,” he said. “I took it from his room after Kerberos.”

Keith and Shiro. The unknown hinge in the paladins’ build. Nobody dared asked. The pair rattled along well-enough. Shiro regal and kind, Keith fierce and loyal. It was anyone’s guess really…

“You took it to space?” Pidge asked, chuckling a little. “Where’d you stow a thing like that in your skinny jeans? Even you’re not that tough, Kogane.”

Keith frowned, seconds drifting by. “Is this another asshole joke?”

Pidge barked a laugh at that, and threw herself down next to his feet, plucking the little cactus as she sat. “You’re learning, man!”

“I kept it in my pocket.”

Pidge shrugged, and patted his skinny calf. “Still a way to go, buddy.”

Keith’s eyebrows looked like they were on a bad connection to his mouth as he tried to puzzle out the youngest paladin’s humour, but after a moment he managed a rueful smile. “I don’t get it a lot. I’m sorry.”

Pidge studied him unabashedly, even as his eyes darted up to hers every few moments. Eventually, he tutted. “What?” he said, half-smiling.

“What if I could bring it back to life?” she asked. “What would you do with our spiny little friend here?”

“I’d give it to him. We missed his birthday. It was weeks ago.” He huffed noisily through his nose. “But Pidge, we can’t–”

Pidge wasn’t listening. Already, the humid thrumming of the green lion was filling her heart and her head. Between her small hands, the little cactus trembled as the green lion’s energy spilled into it through her paladin. She wouldn’t normally grant such wishes, but the red paladin meant ever so much to her bright, quick guardian. She would do anything to see the green paladin happy. And this gentle, rough boy was the key to that happiness tonight. His eyes shone with awe as the cactus stood up slowly, spines popping into place. It greened in Pidge’s hands then flowered beautifully, and the green lion yowled with pride.

“Pidge,” Keith whispered, taking the offered plant with shaking hands. 

Such a simple, stupid thing. A home token, a desert miracle.

“Pidge,” he repeated. “How did you–”

“Happy birthday, Keith,” said Pidge, flopping her arms in a no-big-deal shrug.

The red paladin shook his head. “It’s not my birthday…”

Pidge winked. “Well, I have it on good authority it’s sometime this year.”

Keith looked at her for a beat before he exploded into laughter. "You're so weird!" he cried, cactus forgotten for the moment as he grabbed her into a messy, skinny-limbed hug.

" _I'm_ the weird one," Pidge mock-despaired.

Space, for the moment, seemed a whole lot more like home.


End file.
